Encyclopedia of

Sin Eater

For those who believed in an afterlife, death included the fear of
punishment for misdeeds committed and unforgiven. For centuries, believers
confessed their sins and sought forgiveness on
their deathbeds. The souls of these who had not been forgiven were
believed to wander where they had lived, bringing distress and ill fortune
to their survivors. Over time, humankind developed various means to ease
the passage of souls to a peaceful life in the hereafter. One method,
whose origins can be traced to Egyptian and Greek civilizations, was
embodied in the "sin eater," a person who was believed to
possess the ability to symbolically ingest the sins of the deceased
through eating and drinking over the recently deceased corpse. The sin
eater, a secular person performing a quasi-spiritual role, was paid for
this important service.

The central theme of this custom is the persistent, universal need to
placate the souls of the deceased, to help the soul on its way and to be
rid of it, lest it return and cause distress among the living. Eating in
the presence of the corpse is customary in a number of cultures, as is
token payment of a coin to those who assist in passage to the afterlife,
such as the Greek mythological character Charon.